Broken blood feather, what to do??

[Qi Chicken]

We have an ee roo that was badly injured by a dog. Mostly his tail. He had pretty severe wounds and lost most of his tail feathers. He spent two weeks in a cage. His wound healed and his scab fell off. New feathers were starting to come in and we put him back in the coop on Saturday.

He was doing fine. I went out this morning and his back and butt were covered with blood. It looked like one of the 1/2 inch long feathers on his back was clotted with blood. It had stopped bleeding. It looked like a lot of blood but he is white.

I read that this can be very dangerous. That a bird can bleed out. After all we have been through with him I would be absolutely devastated if we lost him.

How do you think it could have broken? Is there anything we can do to prevent it happening again? He has many small feathers like this that are trying to grow back in. Some of them look like blood feathers.

He is the only roo. I don't think anyone pecked him. The wound was right by his oil gland. Do you think he could have injured these new feathers by preening?

We have a saddle for him but haven't put it on him. I haven't tried it because 1) I think he would hate it 2) I'm not sure it will be long enough 3) if it is long enough I didn't want it to rub on all these baby feathers.

OK What to do??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

 

[Finnie]

This thread is old, and nobody ever answered it. But I have pretty much the same question about a hen that was attacked by a dog. She had only minor injuries and healed up very well. Now she is growing back her feathers, which she badly needs since the weather is turning cold and she is very bare behind! Today a few of the blood feathers on her tail have broken and are bleeding a tiny bit.

If she were a budgie, or other small bird, I would pull the bleeding pin feathers out. But this hen really needs to grow as many new feathers as possible, and I hate the thought of pulling any if I don't have to. I did a search to get advice instead of starting a new thread, and when I came across this one, I really wished someone had answered all of the OPs questions.

 

[JanetMarie]

Are blood feathers the short feathers that start to grow out that you can see the blood through the shaft? I have a roo who has a lot of them missing from his neck, and I thought that someone picked them out (to eat) but didn't see any signs of who it might have been. I don't think they can just fall out, can they?